Gorse flowers, a cirl bunting, Rupert Holmes, and a piña colada

Abundance: Tuesday 14 May 2024

A few years ago, when life was less than excellent, a particular walk helped me retain balance. What starts as dark, looming conifers, eases into deciduous; the claustrophobic height and adjacency imperceptibly dropping to something relatable, lighter, more relaxed and human¹. Where the trees thin, bluebells and cow parsley run away from my feet, a path worn here and there by animals making their nocturnal who-knows-why way to who-knows-where. A single wild apple pops blossom towards the sun, the bird chorus becomes more identifiable: the bicycle pump song of the great tit, the chiffchaff - perfectly named after its tune - and the babbling brook of a singing blackbird. At the hedged divide of grazed and ungrazed, an unknown song: Merlin tells me I heard - for the first time in my life - a cirl bunting, a rare species making noisy hay in the limited patch it calls home in the UK. 

Here, on the mudstone over sandstone, where the dry sandy soils and southerly aspect come together, gorse thrives and with it a surprising number of grateful species. Gorse might not look like a rich habitat, but its spikiness makes it impenetrable to humans; it’s a refuge for creatures feathered and furred. Right now, showered in yellow flowers, it is alive with bees and other pollinators in search of nectar. Unseen as they may be on this bright May morning, moth and butterfly larvae make their home.

Gorse’s yellow flowers, stark against the blue sky, are not only full of nectar, they’re rich in coconut scent. I’ve intended to pick them in the past but maybe I needed a recipe, a punchline, a point, to finally bring me here, tub in hand.

Today is warm and sunny - an overdue upgrade on spring so far. Bees are alive to the gorse - at 16°C the pollen flies, and with it a more intense coconut scent that attracts both the winged and the two legged.

It take 30 slow minutes to pick enough of these small yellow flowers to amount to perhaps 4 decent handfuls. It is half an hour well spent. There is no rushing: you have to proceed relatively slowly to avoid spiking yourself silly, but it is in the settling into a slow meditative plucking that your mind might empty enough to not anticipate conversations with those who wonder what you are up to, to not throw your thoughts ahead to whatever you’ll do when you leave, where - if you are lucky - you’ll become a simple, uncomplicated creature, with a mind untroubled by anything other than what you are doing in that moment.

England in May, when the clouds part and the rain waits, is hard to beat. I hum Van’s Warm Love.

Gorse flower rum

This couldn’t be simpler. Pour the sugar into a jar that will hold at least 750ml, add 100ml vodka and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the gorse flowers and the rest of the vodka, pop on the lid and shake/invert the jar to mix. Allow to infuse for 2 days, strain and bottle.

600ml white rum
2 large handfuls of gorse flowers
1cm white caster sugar

Gorse flower syrup

The classic syrup recipe - a little more sugar to water by weight - is tweaked only in allowing this to get just-warm before adding the flowers, as their flavour is easily lost to heat. Try this with sparkling water, prosecco, or in a Tom Collins, with equal parts gin and lemon juice.

500g caster sugar
400g water
2 handfuls of gorse flowers

Stir 150g boiling water into the sugar until it has dissolved. Add 250g cold water, along with the gorse flowers. allow to infuse for 2-3 hours only, then strain and bottle.

The Rupert Holmes, aka Gorse flower piña colada

Rupert Holmes' 70s Escape (aka the Pina Colada Song) is an earworm not easily dislodged. It tells the tale of a bored husband who responds to a personal ad and, well, you can probably guess the rest. It is a piece of cheese larger than the contents of Wallace’s fridge, but it brought that pleasingly tropical cocktail to my attention. The coconut triple is spot on here; the lime is an optional tweak to bring a little edge should the pineapple juice be on the sweet side.

50ml gorse flower rum
60ml fresh pineapple juice
40ml gorse flower syrup
50ml coconut milk
Ice
A squeeze of lime (optional)

Place all but the lime juice in a cocktail shaker² and shake like billy for a minute or so to incorporate fully. Taste and add a little lime if needed. Drink ahead of ‘makin' love at midnight, in the dunes on the cape’³

1. It’s only in writing that that the metaphor for the process the walk helped with becomes clear

2. Use a robust glass with your hand over the top, if needs be

3. Other venues are available